The magistrate was peremptory. “What do you do for a living?” he asked.
“Me mother help me, sah, an’ me uncle,” stammered poor Hezekiah, reduced to the sad extremity of telling the truth.
“Now, sir!” thundered the lawyer, “do you mean to tell me that a big man like you is living on a poor old woman? And have you nothing better to do than come to the court-house and tell lies?”
“I don’t tell no lie, sah!” grumbled Hezekiah.
“Don’t be impertinent, sir! Now remember you are on your oath: didn’t the Chinaman at the lane corner once threaten to put you in charge for stealing a pack of Rosebud cigarettes off his counter?”
The question came like a thunder-clap. Hezekiah’s love for these cigarettes was well-known to all his friends, but he had fondly hoped that that little episode, which might have had so unpleasant a termination, had been forgotten by the Chinaman himself. How did the lawyer know of it? In his bewilderment it did not dawn on him that his whole life-history, in so far as Maria knew it, had been told with point and circumstance to Maria’s lawyer.
Fear now took possession of him—abject fear. A few more questions like the last, and his reputation in the lane would be ruined for ever. He moved about in his circle as a man of some importance, for he played the guitar, swore with remarkable fluency, and claimed superiority on the ground that he neither worked nor wanted. This examination was not at all what he had bargained for. As he explained afterwards, the lawyer took a mean advantage of him. But the fierce interrogatory had had its effect; for when the lawyer asked him, “Now, didn’t you see Susan Proudleigh assault Maria Bellicant first?” he meekly answered, “Yes.”
After that the truth, or as much of it as Hezekiah could remember, came out. All that Susan’s lawyer could do was to prove that Maria had been as quick to quarrel as Susan. Long before the witnesses were finished with, it had become clear to the magistrate that he had here a simple case of jealousy to deal with, and, as he had acquired something of a reputation as a maker of compromises (which satisfied nobody) he thought he would interpose at this point and so still further add to his fame as a peacemaker.
Looking sternly at Susan, he told her that she could go on with the case if she liked; but that though it was clear that he would have to fine Maria for provoking her to a breach of the peace, by putting her hand in her (the prosecutor’s) face, which act amounted to a technical assault, he saw clearly that when Maria Bellicant’s case came on he would also have to fine the present prosecutor. Both had used insulting words; both were to blame. So he would advise them to make up their differences out of court, especially as they appeared to be two decent young women.
Being a man of decided views on morality, he was particularly hard on Tom.